


Headrest For My Soul

by Ithinkwehaveanemergency



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-17 06:09:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21049601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ithinkwehaveanemergency/pseuds/Ithinkwehaveanemergency
Summary: Evan Buckley is a couple days short of a month old when he gets a dark inky mark that spells out someone's initials, which for most, means that their supposed "soulmate" is already alive.OrA semi canon-compliant soulmate AU that tells the story of Buck finding his right when he wasn't looking.





	Headrest For My Soul

Evan Buckley is a couple days short of a month old when he gets a dark inky mark that spells out someone's initials, which for most, means that their supposed "soulmate" is already alive.

** _E.A.C._ **

The letters never really matter to Buck. His parents didn't match, and his first girlfriend in high school didn't even have any. She might have never gotten them for all Buck knows. Less than forty percent of people meet their soulmates, so it's not something he ever banked on.

And then Maddie and Doug happen.

When Maddie ghosts everyone in her life, leaving Buck alone and heartbroken and terrified for his sister, he hopes with all his heart that he'll never find his soulmate. He's young and he doesn't understand why anyone would want to if that's what it does to them.

The years pass and Buck dates often. Not as often as he simply has sex without concern for a name or phone number, but there are some special people. One of them is a  _ very _ important person who Buck has to thank for the man he is today.

After she moves away, he often thinks about the day, lying on the couch with Abby, that he believed, for one brief second, he might have found  _ the one _ .

It was very early into their friendship and he'd teased the woman about something and called her, "Abigail Whatever-you-middle-name-is Clark." After she settled down from her fit of laughter and threw a pillow at the young man, she responded saying that Abigail was actually her middle name, not her first.

His heart clenched at the words and the breath was knocked from his lungs as he gasped out a desperate question of whether her name started with an " _ E _ " much to Abby's concern and confusion. And then Abby had looked at him with a sorrowful expression and asked if those were his letters. Without saying her first name, which he later learned to be Charlotte, she showed him her own messily scribbled mark, "P.D.E."

His heart stayed clenched as she told him that she knows who the owner of the initials is and he's a happily married gay man that she went to high school with. They don't know for sure, obviously, no one does. But they were extremely compatible except for romantic and physical attraction. They decided to remain friends, who then drifted apart to the point of christmas cards and skyping once or twice a year.

Buck had smiled and relaxed at the renewed belief that soulmarks didn't really mean anything.

A year after his unfortunate but amicable breakup with Abby, Buck finds out that two of his closest friends and peers have found their soulmates. Hen with her wife, Karen, and Bobby with his first wife, Marcy.

He also learned from Chimney that the charismatic paramedic never got initials. His friend and coworker goes on to tell him that it is a proven yet unexplained phenomenon that far less people born from either Indigenous African or Northeast Asian ancestry get marks at all.

Buck adds it all to a lifetime of proof that soulmarks aren't a guide at all, and it doesn't matter what his says. It never will.

By the time he meets Eddie Diaz, he's all but forgotten about the letters permanently etched into the skin of his left upper hamstring.

Buck sees the man changing on his first day, and there's a small piece of PT tape poking through the bottom of his Under Armour that Buck can't just ignore.

He asks about it and the man sighs, says it's his mark, and refuses to say anything else.

Another two years pass, and Buck grows a lot more as a person. In the midst of it all, Eddie gets his wife back and then loses her forever in practically the same breath.

He tries to help his best friend through his grief, but more of life's obstacles pull them apart and Eddie pointedly looks for solace elsewhere. Buck gets swept up in his own grief and eventually regrets not being there for him. They find one another again, because they truly care for each other and it becomes their rock.

Buck and Eddie grow closer and closer until it feels almost impossible for Buck to hold back how he feels for the man and his endlessly endearing son.

After talking it over for weeks, Eddie finally gives and kisses Buck and they fall into each other and each other's beds faster than they probably should, but they're both happier than they thought they could be after the events of the past year or so.

And when they decide to tell him right away, Chris seems surprisingly happy to welcome the change, too.

In the first week or two, they're desperately intimate whenever they possibly can be, but it's often rushed, hurried by the responsibilities of their jobs and a kid. And still, every single time Buck sees Eddie naked, there's always that little bit of tape in the same spot, probably changed at least every couple of days, but consistently covering up the letters. He respects Eddie's choice, and loves the man unconditionally, so he doesn't say anything, happy to give him the privacy he wants.

So the day that he comes face to face with his own initials on Eddie's body, his reaction is less than positive.

Buck gets off work a bit earlier than planned and he lets himself quietly into his best friend and brand new boyfriend's house to surprise the other firefighter with some morning cuddles and hopefully uninterrupted sex.

He walks into the bedroom to an empty bed and a running shower, but his smile grows even wider at that as he resolves to join the other man.

He walks into the en suite, a sexy greeting on the tip of his tongue, eyes roving over bare, tanned skin in the foggy glass. He opens the door to the stall and gets as far as "Hey, Ba-" before his eyes lock on a dark set on letters on the back of Eddie's hamstring.

Eddie turns around, terrified then relieved when he sees who it is. The relief quickly fades and his heart sinks as he realizes what Buck's gaze is fixed on.

** _E.X.B._ **

"Eddie, why the  _ fuck _ are my letters on your leg?" Buck shouts in surprise, anger starting to curl around the end of the question.

"Babe, hold on. Let me…" Eddie finishes rinsing off in a matter of seconds and then pushes Buck back so that he can exit the stall and grab a towel. "I can explain."

"Why do you have my letters if I don't have yours, Eddie?" Buck's tone reaches near hysterical as Eddie dries himself. "Is that why you hid them this whole time? Because you thought it was weird? What the fuck is going on?!"

Eddie continues drying his body in silence, pointedly not looking at Buck or answering his questions. Then he stops and stares at Buck with a look that the younger man can't out a name to.

"Buck, our letters match." Eddie takes a deep breath in as he says the words and then sighs when they're ouf, toweling off his hair and brushing past his lover on a quest to find clothes to put on.

"No, they don't." Buck sputters out, stepping toward Eddie, confusion falling over his features once more.

"Yes. They do." Eddie pulls out boxer briefs and steps into them before facing Buck once more. "I was born with the last name Christensen. It was my mother's last name and she was unmarried. Despite the fact that she lived with my father's aunt and other members of his family at the time, she wasn't sure she and my father would ever marry. My birth certificate says Edmundo Alaric Christensen. I didn't become a Diaz until he finally got his shit together and they married when I was six."

Buck lets the words sink in and his stomach sink along with them.

Eddie had seen his letters when Buck was recovering in the hospital after he got his leg crushed. He had reacted to the sight and location of them strangely at the time, and Buck had laughed it off, saying that Eddie must've seen them before. The older man hadn't said anything at all and after helping Buck to the bathroom, he'd left hastily despite saying he didn't have plans for the next few hours.

Buck feels the gradual boiling up of anger beneath his skin and he meets the dark featured man's eyes once more.

"Why did you hide this from me?" Buck cried, his voice coming out strangled and pathetic to his own ears. He reaches a hand out to stop Eddie as he tries to walk away. "Tell me why you lied to me!"

"Because the stupid letters don't mean anything, Buck!" Eddie yells, roughly batting away the younger man's arm from his chest. "They're  _ bullshit _ and they're not why I'm with you, so it shouldn't matter! I  _ never _ lied to you."

"It  _ does _ matter, and it's the same as lying because you knew and you never told me! You've know for a fucking  _ year _ , and you never said a word?" Buck growls back, following Eddie back to the bathroom only to get a door slammed in his face. "What the  _ fuck _ , Eddie?!"

There's silence on the other side of the door for a few seconds and then Buck hears the distinct sound of PT tape being pulled off a roll.

"Eddie!" Buck shouts through the wood. "Are you fucking serious? You're still covering it up?! What the fuck for?"

The door opens just as swiftly as it was shut in his face and Eddie storms out, getting in Buck's face with an anger the blonde has never seen directed at him.

"For  _ Shannon _ , Buck. I do it for her. I  _ always _ did it for her, even when she left me. She was always  _ so _ scared I would find my soulmate and leave her, no matter how much I tried to convince her that I would never love anyone in the world as much as I love her and Christopher. But she couldn't handle it sometimes. It's part of what got in her head and made her run in the first place." Eddie snarls, tears forming in his red eyes. "And I can't stop doing it just because she's gone. Because that means that she was  _ right,  _ Buck. That she was right when she said we shouldn't be together and that I wouldn't love her forever."

Buck's eyes are wide and he can feel it getting harder to breathe with each word from the widowed man's mouth.

"If I stop covering it, Buck… if I accept that you and I were  _ inevitable _ ? If I admit to myself that I wanted you even before I lost her, before I knew for sure that we were soul-" Eddie's voice cracks, turning up high and strained, so he stops and gathers himself. He looks away and sniffs. "Then I'm admitting that what she and I had wasn't real, and it wasn't worth all the trouble, and that when she came back here for us... she died for  _ nothing _ , just as alone and unloved as she felt whenever she saw those letters on my skin. I can't do that to her, Buck. For better or worse, she was my  _ wife _ . She was my  _ family. _ "

"Eddie, I'm-"

Buck's words are cut off as Eddie closes the distance between them with one large stride and kisses him. It's harsh and salty and it hurts, but it's a reassurance. It's a comfort that Buck knows Eddie is trying hard to provide without having to say the words.

That he loves Buck. That Buck isn't a replacement. That Buck is as much family as Shannon ever was, just in a different way, because Eddie will always have a place in his heart for the troubled woman he'd loved so deeply.

Buck parts from the kiss, moving to place kisses across Eddie's tear tracks instead, pulling the slightly shorter man into the warmth and safety of his arms. He kisses his forehead, his temple, his hair, trying not to cry himself at the helpless feeling of not being able to make the man he loves' pain go away.

"Baby, we don't have to talk about it." Buck mutters into dark, damp locks. "We can just act like I never saw it. You know I don't buy into the soulmarks anyway, right? I know it doesn't mean we have to be together. I knew I would love you for the rest of my life before I even knew.  _ You know that _ . I am so sorry for yelling at you, Eds. I'm so sorry. Please, just… let's forget I said anything at all."

Eddie shakes his head and tries to answer, but his words are muffled where his face is pressed to Buck's neck. He pulls away enough to kiss Buck again and then press their foreheads together.

"No, it's been killing me. Keeping this from you, especially the past two weeks…" Eddie sighs. "I don't want to keep anything from you, ever. If we want this to work, we have to be honest with each other. And you're right, you deserved to know, at least when we started _this_. You're it for me, Buck. You might not be the only person I've loved, but _my_ _god_ am I in love with you, and nothing will change that."

Buck sucks in a breath and lets out a laugh so that he doesn't cry instead. He nods ever so slightly, his forehead brushing against Eddie's before leaning back to look into his gorgeous, red rimmed, dark hazel eyes.

"I love you too." Buck whispers. His hands move from the smooth, damp skin of Eddie's back up to his jaw, running his thumbs along the stubble there. "I love you in whatever way and as long as you'll let me, and that means that this is a part of us. But I am so so sorry that you had to feel like that. And I am so so sorry you had to feel it alone."

Eddie's brow furrows and he pushes his face into one of Buck's hands, bringing his own hand up to hold the pale fingers against his cheek.

"I'm ready to move on, I just-" Eddie stops and swallows, eyes pleading with his best friend of almost two years, and lover of just over a couple weeks.

"We can take it as slow as you need, Eddie." Buck frowns and shakes his head. "If you need to cover the mark for the rest of your life just to honor her memory, it will not make me love you any less. In fact, we can cover mine too if it makes you hurt less. I swear to you, I would never do anything to ruin your memory of her."

Eddie lets out a weak laugh, and his eyes squint the way Buck loves, so he attempts a smile back.

"That is why I love you, Evan Xavier Buckley." Eddie speaks with such reverence as he says Buck's full name that the younger man's smile grows full and wide. It makes Eddie laugh once more, and his eyes lose a little redness as he moves his gaze across Buck's handsome features. "Don't cover yours up. I want to see it. It might hurt, but it also reminds me that we've made it here. That life had a lot of ways it could have kept us apart… But it didn't. And we found each other."

Buck nods, leaning in to kiss his soulmate. He kisses him until they're tired and lazy and all they want to do for the few spare hours they have before Christopher needs to be picked up is hold one another.

Evan Buckley is a couple years short of 30 when he starts the rest of his life with his love of his life by his side, and unlike most people who find the person who matches up with their soulmark, Buck doesn't give credit to the three inky letters. He always would've loved Eddie Diaz anyway.


End file.
